The Scarlatti Inheritance (25 page)

Canfield felt a sudden sting of inferiority. He was outclassed.

“Why, Mr. Canfield, this is a surprise.”

He could not determine whether her greeting was meant to be pleasant or not. It was friendly, but cool and reserved. This girl had learned the lessons of the old money well.

“I hope not an unwelcome one, Mrs. Scarlett.”

“Not at all.”

Hannah had reached the bottom step and walked toward the dining room doors. Canfield quickly spoke again. “During my trip I ran across a fellow whose company makes dirigibles. I knew you’d be interested.” Canfield watched Hannah out of the corner of his eye without moving his head. Hannah had turned abruptly and looked at the field accountant.

“Really, Mr. Canfield? Why would that concern me?” The girl was mystified.

“I understood your friends on Oyster Bay were determined to buy one for their club. Here, I’ve brought all the information. Purchase price, rentals, specifications, the works.… Let me show you.”

The field accountant took Janet Scarlett’s elbow and led her swiftly toward the living room doors. Hannah hesitated ever so slightly but, with a glance from Canfield, retreated into the dining room. Canfield then closed the living room doors.

“What are you doing? I don’t want to buy a dirigible.”

The field accountant stood by the doors, motioning the girl to stop talking.

“What?”

“Be quiet for a minute. Please.” He spoke softly.

Canfield waited about ten seconds and then opened the doors in one swinging motion.

Directly across the hallway, standing by the dining room table, was Hannah and a man in white overalls, obviously one of the painters. They were talking while looking over toward the living room doors. They were now in full view of Canfield’s stare. Embarrassed, they moved away.

Canfield shut the door and turned to Janet Scarlett. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“What are you doing?”

“Just interesting that your help should be so curious.”

“Oh, that.” Janet turned and picked up a cigarette from a case on the coffee table. “Servants will talk and I think you’ve given them cause.”

Canfield lit her cigarette. “Including the painters?”

“Hannah’s friends are her own business. They’re no concern of mine. Hannah’s barely a concern of mine.…”

“You don’t find it curious that Hannah nearly tripped when I mentioned a dirigible?”

“I simply don’t understand you.”

“I admit I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Why didn’t you telephone?”

“If I had, would you have seen me?”

Janet thought for a minute. “Probably.… Whatever recriminations I had over your last visit wouldn’t be any reason to insult you.”

“I didn’t want to take that gamble.”

“That’s sweet of you and I’m touched. But why this very odd behavior?”

There was no point in delaying any longer. He took the envelope out of his pocket “I’ve been asked to give you this. May I sit down while you read it?”

Janet, startled, took the envelope and immediately recognized
her mother-in-law’s handwriting. She opened the envelope and read the letter.

If she was astonished or shocked, she hid her emotions well.

Slowly she sat down on the sofa and put out her cigarette. She looked down at the letter and up at Canfield, and then back to the letter. Without looking up, she asked quietly, “Who are you?”

“I work for the government. I’m an official … a minor official in the Department of the Interior.”

“The government? You’re not a salesman, then?”

“No, I’m not.”

“You wanted to meet me and talk with me for the government?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you tell me you sold tennis courts?”

“We sometimes find it necessary to conceal our employment. It’s as simple as that.”

“I see.”

“I assume you want to know what your mother-in-law means in the letter?”

“Don’t assume anything.” She was cold as she continued. “It was your job to meet me and ask me all those amusing questions?”

“Frankly, yes.”

The girl rose, took the necessary two steps toward the field accountant, and slapped him across the face with all her strength. It was a sharp and painful blow. “You son of a bitch! Get out of this house!” She still did not raise her voice. “Get out before 1 call the police!”

“Oh, my God, Janet, will you stop it!” He grabbed her shoulders as she tried to wriggle away. “Listen to me! I said listen or I’ll slap you right back!”

Her eyes shone with hatred and, Canfield thought, a touch of melancholy. He held her firmly as he spoke. “Yes, I was assigned to meet you. Meet you and get whatever information I could.”

She spat in his face. He did not bother to brush it away.

“I got the information I needed and I used that information because that’s what I’m paid for! As far as my department is concerned, I left this house by nine o’clock after you served me two drinks. If they want to pick you
up for illegal possession of alcohol, that’s what they can get you for!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I don’t give a good God damn whether you do or not! And for your further information I’ve had you under surveillance for weeks! You and the rest of your playmates.… It may interest you to know that I’ve omitted detailing the more … ludicrous aspects of your day-to-day activities!”

The girl’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“I’m doing my job as best I can, and I’m not so sure you’re the one who should scream ‘violated virgin’! You may not realize it, but your husband, or former husband, or whatever the hell he is, could be very much alive. A lot of nice people who never heard of him—women like you and young girls—were burned to death because of him! Others were killed, too, but maybe they should have been.”

“What are you saying?” He relaxed his grip on her but still held her firmly.

“I just know that I left your mother-in-law a week ago in England. It was a hell of a trip over! Someone tried to kill her the first night out on the ship. Oh, you can bet your life it would have been suicide! They would have said she had tearfully thrown herself overboard. No trace at all.… A week, ago we let out a story to the newspapers saying she’d gone to a retreat in a place called York, in England. Two days ago the heating system blew up and killed Christ knows how many people! An accident, of course!”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Do you want me to finish, or do you still want me to go?”

There was a sadness about Ulster Scarlett’s wife as she tried to smile. “I guess you’d better stay and … finish.”

They sat on the sofa and Canfield talked.

He talked as he had never talked before.

Benjamin Reynolds sat forward in his chair, clipping a week-old article from the Sunday supplement of the
New York Herald.
It was a photograph of Janet Saxon Scarlett being escorted by “sportingoods executive, M. Canfield” to a dog show at Madison Square Garden. Reynolds smiled as he recalled Canfield’s remark on the telephone.

“I can stand everything but the God damn dog shows. Dogs are for the very rich or the very poor. Not for anyone in between!”

No matter, thought Group Twenty’s head. The newspapers were doing an excellent job. Washington had ordered Canfield to spend an additional ten days in Manhattan thoroughly establishing his relationship with Ulster Scarlett’s wife before returning to England.

The relationship was unmistakable and Benjamin Reynolds wondered if it was really a public facade. Or was it something else? Was Canfield in the process of trapping himself? The ease with which he had engineered a collaboration with Elizabeth Scarlatti bore watching.

“Ben”—Glover walked briskly into the office—“I think we’ve found what we’ve been looking for!” He closed the door firmly and approached Reynolds’s desk.

“What have you got? About what?”

“A link with the Scarlatti business. I’m sure of it.”

“Let me see.”

Glover placed several pages on top of the spread-out newspaper. “Nice coverage, wasn’t it?” he said, indicating the photograph of Canfield and the girl.

“Just what us dirty old men ordered. He’s going to be the toast of society if he doesn’t spit on the floor.”

“He’s doing a good job, Ben. They’re back on board ship now, aren’t they?”

“Sailed yesterday.… What is this?”

“Statistics found it. From Switzerland. Zurich area. Fourteen estates all purchased within the year. Look at these latitude and longitude marks. Every one of the properties is adjacent to another one. A borders on B, B on C, C on D, right down the line. Hundreds of thousands of acres forming an enormous compound.”

“One of the buyers Scarlatti?”

“No.… But one of the estates was bought in the name of Boothroyd. Charles Boothroyd.”

“You’re sure? What do you mean ‘bought in the name of’?”

“Father-in-law bought it for his daughter and her husband. Named Rawlins. Thomas Rawlins. Partner in the brokerage house of Godwin and Rawlins. His daughter’s name is Cecily. Married to Boothroyd.”

Reynolds picked up the page with the list of names. “Who are these people? How does it break down?”

Glover reached for the other two pages. “It’s all here. Four Americans, two Swedes, three English, two French, and three German. Fourteen in all.”

“Do you have any rundowns?”

“Only on the Americans. We’ve sent for information on the rest.”

“Who are they? Besides Rawlins.”

“A Howard Thornton, San Francisco. He’s in construction. And two Texas oilmen. A Louis Gibson and Avery Landor. Between them they own more wells than fifty of their competitors combined.”

“Any connections between them?”

“Nothing so far. We’re checking that out now.”

“What about the others? The Swedes, the French?… The English and the Germans?”

“Only the names.”

“Anyone familiar?”

“Several. There’s an Innes-Bowen, he’s English, in textiles, I think. And I recognize the name of Daudet, French. Owns steamship lines. And two of the Germans. Kindorf—he’s in the Ruhr Valley. Coal. And von Schritzler,
speaks for I. G. Farben. Don’t know the rest, never heard of the Swedes, either.”

“In one respect they’re all alike—”

“You bet your life they are. They’re all as rich as a roomful of Astors. You don’t buy places like these with mortgages. Shall I contact Canfield?”

“We’ll have to. Send the list by courier. We’ll cable him to stay in London until it arrives.”

“Madame Scarlatti may know some of them.”

“I’m counting on it.… But I see a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s going to be a temptation for the old girl to head right into Zurich.… If she does, she’s dead. So’s Canfield and Scarlett’s wife.”

“That’s a pretty drastic assumption.”

“Not really. We’re presuming that a group of wealthy men have bought fourteen estates all adjoining one another because of a common interest. And Boothroyd—courtesy of a generous father-in-law—is one of them.”

“Which ties Zurich to Scarlatti.…”

“We think so. We believe it because Boothroyd tried to kill her, right?”

“Of course.”

“But the Scarlatti woman is alive. Boothroyd failed.”

“Obviously.”

“And the property was purchased before that fact.”

“It must have been—”

“Then if Zurich is tied to Boothroyd, Zurich wants Scarlatti dead. They want to stop her. Also … Zurich presumed success. They expected Boothroyd to succeed.”

“And now that he’s gone,” interrupted Glover, “Zurich will figure the old woman found out who he was. Maybe more.… Ben, perhaps we’ve gone too far. It might be better to call it off. Make a report to Justice and get Canfield back.”

“Not yet. We’re getting close to something. Elizabeth Scarlatti’s the key right now. We’ll get them plenty of protection.”

“I don’t want to make an alibi in advance, but this is your responsibility.”

“I understand that. In our instructions to Canfield make one thing absolutely clear. He’s to stay out of Zurich. Under no condition is he to go to Switzerland.”

“I’ll do that.”

Reynolds turned from his desk and stared out the window. He spoke to his subordinate without looking at him. “And … keep a line open on this Rawlins. Boothroyd’s father-in-law. He’s the one who may have made the mistake.”

Twenty-five miles from the ancient limits of Cardiff, set in a remote glen in a Welsh forest, stands the Convent of the Virgin, the home of the Carmelite sisters. The walls rise in alabaster purity, like a new bride standing in holy expectation in a lush but serpentless Eden.

The field accountant and the young wife drove up to the entrance. Canfield got out of the car and walked to a small arched doorway set in the wall in which was centered a viewer. There was a black iron knocker on the side of the door that he used, then waited for several minutes until a nun answered.

“May I help you?”

The field accountant drew out his indentification card and held it up for the nun to see. “My name is Canfield, sister. I’m here for Madame Elizabeth Scarlatti. Her daughter-in-law is with me.”

“If you’ll wait, please. May I?” She indicated that she wished to take his identification card with her. He handed it to her through the small opening.

“If course.”

The viewer was closed and bolted. Canfield wandered back to the car and spoke to Janet. “They’re very cautious.”

“What’s happening?”

“She’s taking my card in to make sure the photograph’s me and not someone else.”

“Lovely here, isn’t it? So quiet.”

“It is now. I make no promises when we finally see the old girl.”

“Your callous, unfeeling disregard for my well-being, to say nothing of my comforts, is beyond anything I can describe! Do you have any idea what these idiots sleep on? I’ll tell you! Army cots!”

“I’m sorry—” Canfield tried not to laugh.

“And do you know the slops they eat? I’ll tell you! Food I’d prohibit in my stables!”

“I’m told they grow their own vegetables,” the field accountant countered gently.

“They pluck up the fertilizer and leave the plants!”

At that moment the bells of the Angelus pealed out.